"Right," I say, standing up. "Thank you for your advice."
I leave before he can see the tears threatening to fall. Before I can embarrass myself by asking him why he's being so cruel, why he's treating me like I'm nothing to him.
The dinner with Enzo is worse than the one with Marco. He sits too close, touches my arm too often, and makes comments that toe the line between flirtation and something darker. And the whole time, I'm thinking about Luca's words.
Endure it. That's what we all do in this life.
Is that really all there is? Endurance? Survival? Going through the motions of a life that was decided for me before I was old enough to have a say?
I look across the table at my father, at the satisfied expression on his face as he watches Enzo ‘charm’ me. This is what he wants—what he's always wanted—a daughter who does what she's told, who marries well and strengthens the family's position. My happiness doesn't factor into the equation.
And Luca... Luca has made it clear that he's not going to be my escape. Whatever I thought might happen between us, whatever hope I'd been carrying—it's not going to happen.
I'm alone in this.
By the end of the first week, the situation has crystallized into something I can no longer deny.
Alessandro, Marco, and Enzo are clearly the frontrunners. My father has made that clear through a series of increasingly pointed comments about their respective merits. Alessandro is his favorite—kind, respectful, from a good family. Marco has the wealth and connections. Enzo has the ambition and the willingness to do whatever it takes to rise in the organization. Any one of them would be an acceptable choice, and none of them makes me feel anything beyond resignation.
And Luca... Luca has perfected the art of avoiding me. He's always busy when I try to talk to him, always has somewhere else to be. When we're in the same room, he positions himself as far from me as possible. He doesn't look at me unless he absolutely has to, and when he does, his expression is so carefully blank it makes my chest ache. I don't understand what I did wrong. I don't understand why he's changed so much. But I'm starting to accept that I'll never understand. That whatever I thought we had—even if it was just friendship—is gone.
—
The family dinneron Friday night is supposed to be a celebration. Romeo has successfully negotiated a new territory agreement, and my father is in an excellent mood. The dining room is full of family and associates, everyone drinking expensive wine and congratulating each other on their various successes. I sit at the table, smiling and nodding and playing my part. The perfect daughter. The obedient girl who'll marry whoever her father chooses and never complain about it.
Luca is sitting on the other side of Savannah, who is between him and Romeo, just a few chairs across the table from me. He doesn’t look very celebratory, and tonight there's something particularly tense about him, something coiled and dangerous in the set of his shoulders.
I try not to look at him. I've been trying not to look at him all week, trying to accept that whatever I felt—whatever I thought I felt—was one-sided. A fantasy I built up in my head. But my eyes keep drifting back to him anyway, like he's magnetic north and I'm a compass that can't help but point in his direction.
"Giulia."
I turn to find my father looking at me. "Alessandro will be joining us for dinner tomorrow night. I'd like you to wear something particularly nice. I think we're getting close to making a decision."
The words land like stones in my stomach.Making a decision.Like I'm a business transaction being finalized. "Of course,Papa," I manage.
He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder approvingly, a rare physical gesture of affection from him. It makes my stomach sink even further.
This is really happening. In a matter of weeks, maybe days, I'll be engaged to one of the men I met hardly two weeks ago.We'll have a wedding that's big and flashy and cements the Ciresa family’s place in the organization, and I'll spend the rest of my life being the perfect mafia wife.
I'll never know what it's like to choose. To want someone and have them want me back. To feel passion instead of duty. The thought makes me want to scream.
Instead, I excuse myself from the table and head to the bathroom, needing a moment alone to try to breathe.
I'm standing at the sink, staring at my reflection in the mirror, when I remember something my friend Isabelle said the last semester of boarding school.
Isabelle was my roommate—a wild, reckless girl from a French crime family who had opinions about everything and no filter whatsoever. We'd been lying in our beds late one night, talking about the future and the marriages we'd both be forced into eventually.
"It's so unfair," Isabelle had said, her voice bitter in the darkness. "Men can do whatever they want. My brother has a black card membership to some exclusive sex club in Manhattan. He goes there whenever he wants, fucks whoever he wants, and no one says a word. But me? I have to stay pure and virginal until my father sells me off to the highest bidder."
I'd been shocked—not by the language, but by the casual way she talked about it. Like it was just a fact of life, something to be accepted rather than fought against.
"A sex club?" I'd asked, curious despite myself.
"Mmm. Very exclusive, very expensive. He showed me pictures once—it's all very elegant, very discreet. Some people wear masks, apparently, if they don’t want to be recognized. So you can be whoever you want for a night."
Masks.
The word echoes in my head now as I stare at my reflection.People wear masks. You can be whoever you want for a night.
